Villages lie in ruin, much of the population lives in camps, and the sight of victims of his squads' chilling tactics - including people with their noses and lips sliced away - can imbue Acholiland with a haunted feel.

Kony emerged in the late 1980s as a leader of a rebel group in northern Uganda's Acholiland opposed to President Yoweri Museveni, attracting supporters with a creed based on a mix of mysticism and apocalyptic Christianity.

Parroting the establishment line, Hitchens has no complaints about the UPDF brutalizing children in the refugee camps of Acholiland, and he never mentions the SPLA's conscription of thousands of child soldiers.